Alegre y Valgañón

Rioja (Sajazarra)

'Las Llanas' Single Vineyard Viura field blend 2019

Size

This special single vineyard wine replicates a historical style called Tercera Año … a wine bottled in its 3rd year of maturation. Las Llanas is a very special old parcel Eva purchased and rescued from utter neglect. It’s in their home town, Sajazarra, more or less across the road from their little bodega. First release is from the 2018 harvest.

The vineyard is a field blend of Viura, Rojal, Calagraño and Garnacha Blanca (to quote Oscar: “contains all the white grapes allowed and more”) grown in very poor sandstone. There’s not enough fruit to put through a vertical press, so the wine ferments with skins but without stems and is pressed after 4 weeks of fermentation and maceration. One 400 litre barrel was filled and the wine aged here a while before resting in Clayber ceramic (24 months in total), and bottled unfiltered and unfined. Please decant. 530 bottles made

A profound wine redolent of lush grasses, deep, sweet semi-dry herbs and honeysuckle. Rounded lemon-barley richness is cut with rind, and the wine bubbles with pebbly mineral life, running out on a chalk soil surf crunch. Salted apples abound in a wine of great length and intensity.